Grammar Pet Peeves by Lois Winston
Marilyn:
Don't you just love the title of this book? And the cover is pretty great too. Read on about Lois Winston and her book, Death by a Killer Mop Doll.
Bio:
Lois Winston is the author of the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries published by Midnight Ink. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. The new year brings with it the release of Death By Killer Mop Doll (Jan. 8th), the second book in the series. Read an excerpt at http://www.loiswinston.com/excerptap2.html. Visit Lois at her website: http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. You can also follow Lois and Anastasia on Twitter @anasleuth.
Lois Winston is the author of the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries published by Midnight Ink. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. The new year brings with it the release of Death By Killer Mop Doll (Jan. 8th), the second book in the series. Read an excerpt at http://www.loiswinston.com/excerptap2.html. Visit Lois at her website: http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog: http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. You can also follow Lois and Anastasia on Twitter @anasleuth.
First, I’d like to thank Marilyn for hosting me at Marilyn’s Musings today as part of my virtual tour for the release of Death By Killer Mop Doll.
Grammar Crimes
by Lois Winston
by Lois Winston
Do you have a grammar pet peeve? I do. Actually, I have several, and it’s all the fault of an excellent junior high school English teacher who drummed the rules of grammar into me. Thanks to Peggy Riley Hughes at Burnett Jr. High, I can’t shake the good grammar habit. And because of Peggy Riley Hughes, I cringe whenever I hear or read bad grammar. I can’t help it. Those rules are ingrained in my brain. If the world had more Peggys, I’d cringe a lot less.
To boldly go where no man has gone before. Remember that opening from Star Trek? Cringe-worthy! Gene Rodenberry obviously didn’t have Peggy Riley Hughes as an English teacher. If he had, he never would have split his infinitive.
Sadly, because there are so few English teachers like Peggy Riley Hughes, the Oxford English Dictionary did the unthinkable a few years ago -- they declared it okay to split infinitives. The horror! What would Peggy say?
Sadly, because there are so few English teachers like Peggy Riley Hughes, the Oxford English Dictionary did the unthinkable a few years ago -- they declared it okay to split infinitives. The horror! What would Peggy say?
Writers have the license to take liberties with their writing. When I write dialogue, I don’t necessarily write in perfectly formed sentences. People don’t always speak in perfectly formed sentences. We speak in sentence fragments. Style often dictates that sentence fragments also be used in narrative. And our characters rarely speak using perfect grammar. They, too, never took an English class taught by Peggy Riley Hughes. And that’s okay. We want our characters to sound real, not stilted.
But there are grammar rules that should never be broken.
Anyone who wants to be a writer, needs a firm grasp of the English language. Why is this important? Won’t the editor correct whatever needs correcting? Once upon a time that may have been the case but not anymore. Editors don’t have the luxury of time to mollycoddle an author who refuses to learn how to write well, no matter how good a storyteller that author is. There are plenty of other well-written manuscripts sitting in piles on editors’ desks or filling up their hard drives. No editor is interested in a high maintenance author. A manuscript full of grammatical errors will garner a swift rejection.
The grammar error that makes me cringe the most, though, is the misuse of pronouns. For some reason, many people think substituting the nominative for the objective sounds more intelligent, no matter that it’s totally wrong. I see very well educated people making this mistake all the time. Will the OED eventually decide it’s okay to break this very basic rule of English grammar? Peggy Riley Hughes and I both hope not. So here’s a little refresher course on proper pronoun usage:
There are 3 types of pronouns:
Nominative: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, and who
Possessive: my, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs, and whose
Objective: me, you, him, her, it, us, them, and whom
The nominative form is used when the pronoun is the subject of a sentence. The objective form is used when the pronoun is the direct object of the sentence or is part of a prepositional phrase.
WRONG: He likes Mary and I.
RIGHT: He likes Mary and me.
WRONG: He gave the papers to Mary and I.
RIGHT: He gave the papers to Mary and me.
WRONG: The choice will be between you and I.
RIGHT: The choice will be between you and me.
If a pronoun follows than or as, mentally insert the missing words to determine the correct case.
WRONG: I am as tall as him.
RIGHT: I am as tall as he (is).
WRONG: The coach picks John more often than I.
RIGHT: The coach picks John more often than (he picks) me.
Avoid reflexive pronouns -- pronouns ending in self or selves. Reflexive pronouns are used only when they refer back to the subject: He injured himself.
WRONG: The award was shared by my partner and myself.
RIGHT: The award was shared by my partner and me.
Do you have a grammar pet peeve? Post a comment, and you could win one of 5 signed copies of Death By Killer Mop Doll I’m giving away as part of my blog tour this month. The full tour schedule can be found at my website, http://www.loiswinston.com, and the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. In addition, I’m giving away 3 copies of Death By Killer Mop Doll on Goodreads, http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/15173-death-by-killer-mop-doll
Also, for anyone attending The American Library Association’s Mid-Winter conference January 20-24 in Dallas, Midnight Ink will be raffling off the hand-crafted mop doll shown in the photo during the opening reception Friday evening. Register for the drawing at the Midnight Ink booth #1459.
Death By Killer Mop Doll blurb:
Overdue bills and constant mother vs. mother-in-law battles at home are bad enough. But crafts editor Anastasia Pollack's stress level is maxed out when she and her fellow American Woman editors get roped into unpaid gigs for a revamped morning TV show. Before the glue is dry on Anastasia's mop dolls, morning TV turns crime drama when the studio is trashed and a member of the production team is murdered. Former co-hosts Vince and Monica—sleazy D-list celebrities—stand out among a lengthy lineup of suspects, all furious over the show's new format. And Anastasia has no clue her snooping has landed her directly in the killer's unforgiving spotlight.
Marilyn again:
Thank you, Lois, for visiting my blog today. I totally agree with you about your grammar pet peeves.
Comments
Please enter me in your book drawing. And Happy New Year!
My latin teacher freed me from that pesky "no split infinitives rule." And your Peggy reminds me of my Mr. Curran and all those sentences he made us diagram. My pet grammar peeve is that vs which because I'm always pulled to use which, no matter what. Thank you God for Constance Hale's Sin and Syntax that gave me a handle on which one to use when. : )
Anna T.S.
Unfortunately my grade school was a one-room building with nine to twelve kids and a teen-age teacher with only one year of college. So I have had to learn grammar on my own, as I go. People like you help me every day with your blogs and post. Thank you for that. I printed a copy of your post and will keep it close to my computer in my Writer's Reference file folder.
Thanks again,
Thanks for the chance to vent. And Happy New Year, too!
Some folks don't understand antecedents and number.
The boys got their coat. How many coats? The boys share one coat?
Everyone in my family love peas. Hmmm. Everyone loves peas. Better.
I have more. I am the grammar pain in the ass.
Shannon, thanks for mentioning that Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun is available as a free download on Amazon. I don't know how long the promo will last, but as of now, it's still up.
Does that make sense?
But I've been splitting infinitives for so many years that it seems/sounds odd to hear/read them when oh-so-properly formed.
Therefore, I'm glad 'they' relaxed the rules on that. [Even though I didn't get the memo].
Please enter me in the drawing.
Best wishes for success of Death By Killer Mop Doll.
Georgina, most grammar rules are pretty simple and make total sense, but that doesn't keep people from ignoring them, unfortunately. I think those of us fighting the good fight will eventually lose the war.
Jeff, I do sometimes find myself splitting an infinitive, thanks to Gene Roddenberry, but I catch and correct them in revisions.
Liz, thanks for the good wishes!
Patti
Please enter me in your competetion.
Phyllis, "try and" is another one of my biggie pet peeves. It makes absolutely no sense. Yet I hear it and read it all the time.
I don't wish to embarrass you, but I believe that you are mistaken. Yes, the relative pronoun "who" refers to people and "that" refers to inanimate objects or animals, but in the example you gave, the "who" refers to the "young woman," not to the "soul."
The correct usage of "who" and "that" could be exemplified like this: "A young woman who had never harmed an elephant. An elephant that had never harmed a young woman."
By the way, I have no idea whether someone's soul would count as human, but classifying it as an inanimate object or animal seems wrong somehow.
Oh, and my pet peeve? People who mis-correct the grammar of others.
I think the talking heads on TV should learn the difference between using less and fewer in addition to proper pronoun usage, and -LY would be nice on the end of adverbs.
I almost went nuts the other day when my 4th-grader used the word in a sentence and when I tried to explain to her it is not an actual word, she quoted a prominent official as well as a newscaster who had used the word on t.v.
Don't even get me started on "irregardless."
Holli Castillo
As a recovering English teacher, I'm at work on a novel that addresses the trials of being a "grammar geek." One of the protags has her own interesting way of maintaining proper English usage, and I think it adds a little fun to the mystery mix.
Pitfalls everywhere. Sigh... ;-)
Sara Weiss
Less vs. fewer drives me up the wall, along with a lot of the others mentioned.
However, in my world animals have definite personalities that rate a who rather than a that. My horses are definite who's.
thank you for the giveaway!!!
cyn209 at juno dot com
I had went to the store. We had went to see a movie. It's everywhere in conversation around me. :(
"He gave the papers to Mary and I."
"The choice will be between you and I."
These are all "hypercorrections", probably originally caused by speakers being vaguely aware of "rules" against using "me".
However, the "and I" object seems well on its way to becoming a widespread common usage these days. Remember, in language, habits become preferences and preferences become rules.
"I am as tall as him."
There is nothing "wrong" with the above. It has been a feature of English for quite some time.
"The award was shared by my partner and myself."
There's nothing "wrong" with this usage either. The reflexive is simply a means to convey emphasis here.
JJM